CAPTAIN HYDRA (2026) Chris Evans & Sebastian Stan

There are a lot of strong rumors going around that Chris Evans will return to the MCU in Avengers Doomsday as a villain. Reports suggest he may appear alongside Robert Downey Jr.'s Dr. Doom, with Evans most likely playing Captain Hydra. If this turns out to be true, Steve Rogers' return in Doomsday could finally explain a confusing Captain America detail that's been lingering for the past six years. But before diving into that, it's important to understand who Captain Hydra actually is. Captain Hydra is a version of Steve Rogers who serves Hydra and was raised in an altered timeline. This storyline begins with the creation of Kobik, a sentient cosmic cube brought into existence by S.H.I.E.L.D. Kobik manifested as a frightened child with immense reality-altering powers and unknowingly retained a connection to the Red Skull, who once possessed a cosmic cube before it was shattered by Captain America. When S.H.I.E.L.D. used a fragment of that cube to create Kobik, that connection carried over. The Red Skull took advantage of Kobik's innocence and secretly indoctrinated her into Hydra ideology. As part of his master plan, he convinced Kobik that turning Captain America into the best version of himself meant making him loyal to Hydra. Using her omnipotent powers, Kobik rewrote reality and created an alternate timeline where Steve Rogers was raised as a Hydra loyalist from childhood, ultimately becoming Captain Hydra. In this altered timeline, Steve Rogers first encountered Hydra at just six years old in 1926, after his mother, Sarah Rogers, was introduced to a local Hydra-run community by high-ranking member Elisa Sinclair. When Elisa had Sarah's abusive husband Joseph murdered, Sarah tried to escape with Steve. Before she could, Elisa confronted her and Sarah appeared to die during the struggle after hitting her head. Steve was then abducted and taken to a Hydra training facility known as The Keep, where Elisa vouched for him, claiming he was the child Hydra had been searching for. Because of Steve's strong will, Hydra's early attempts to indoctrinate him repeatedly failed. As a result, he was often placed in solitary confinement and forced to watch re-education films. Despite his high intelligence and academic potential, Steve's frail physical condition and frequent illnesses caused both his instructors, particularly Dr. Fenhoff, and his fellow trainees to look down on him. In 1934, during one of Steve's many escape attempts from The Keep, he was persuaded to stay by Daniel Whitehall, also known as The Kraken. Whitehall urged Steve to prove his worth, embrace Hydra's ideology, prioritize collectivism over individualism, and believe in the leadership of the strong. Over the next year, Steve began to demonstrate leadership and dedication to Hydra's cause, earning Dr. Fenhoff's approval. Around this time, he also met Helmut Zemo, who would become his closest and only friend. By 1936, with World War II on the horizon, Hydra chose to align itself with Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, intending to manipulate the regime for its own benefit. In 1940, Steve was sent back to the United States on a mission to infiltrate the U.S. Army and assassinate Abraham Erskine, the scientist leading the Allies' Project Rebirth. After being rejected multiple times while trying to enlist, Steve took a job at a diner Erskine regularly visited, planning to poison him. Steve eventually caught Erskine's attention when General Chester Phillips recognized him from his repeated enlistment attempts and praised his determination to serve in the war. Before Steve could carry out the assassination, he was distracted by a robbery. He tried to stop the thief but failed and was badly beaten. Ironically, this act of courage convinced Erskine that Steve was the right candidate, leading him to select Steve for Project Rebirth and the Super Soldier Serum. When Erskine invited Steve Rogers to dinner, Steve saw it as his chance and tried to shoot him. Erskine nearly managed to talk Steve into lowering the gun, but Helmut Zemo, who was acting as Steve's handler during the mission, stepped in and finished the job. Using a device created by Dr. Fennoff, Zemo extracted all of Erskine's knowledge directly from his mind. Since the project was already too far along to abandon, the Allies struck a deal with the captured Hydra scientist Arnim Zola to continue Erskine's work, unaware that Zola was still secretly loyal to Hydra. Steve was then transformed into the peak of human physical potential through Project Rebirth. By 1942, he officially joined the Allied War effort as Captain America. Publicly, he became a symbol of hope, but in reality, he remained loyal to Hydra, secretly feeding them intelligence on troop movements, supply lines, and even information about a mysterious new superweapon. In 1944, an attack by the invaders on Hydra led to Helmut Zemo's capture and the death of his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo, Hydra's leader. Acting on Hydra's orders, Steve set out to kill Elisa Sinclair, believing she had betrayed the Zemo family to the Allies. Instead, Elisa revealed that the true mastermind was the Red Skull, whose schemes, including Heinrich Zemo's death, allowed him to seize control of Hydra and fold it into the Nazi regime. Captain America eventually confronted the Red Skull in Berlin, where Helmut Zemo was used as leverage to force Steve into swearing loyalty, leaving him broken and ready to abandon the war until Elisa revealed the Allies' plan to use the reality-altering Cosmic Cube. She reunited Steve with his surviving mother, ensured he would survive the coming rewrite of reality, and tasked him with restoring the original timeline. After freeing Helmut and traveling to Ashomia, Hydra's birthplace, Steve learned his destined role, shielded himself from the Cube's effects, and reality shifted into the true timeline where Hydra never won World War II and Steve never served them, instead fighting for the Allies, being frozen in ice, and awakening decades later as an Avenger, until Kobik later made the fabricated Hydra timeline appear to be the real one. I could keep going into his story, but at this point I think you get the idea of who he is. Now let's talk about how all of this could connect. Avengers Doomsday has the chance to finally clear up a confusing Captain America reference from six years ago. In Black Widow, Red Guardian, also known as Alexei Shostakov, constantly mentions Captain America, even claiming that he fought and defeated him back in the 1980s. On the surface, that doesn't make sense, since Steve Rogers was frozen in ice from the 1940s until the events of The Avengers. The easiest explanation is that Red Guardian was simply lying or exaggerating, which wouldn't be out of character for him. Still, there's a small possibility that there was some truth to what he said. One explanation is that Alexei encountered a different version of Captain America. Another is that time travel was involved, and if Chris Evans really is returning as Steve Rogers in Avengers Doomsday, that second option could end up being the real answer. How? Well, Red Guardian could have met a version of Steve Rogers in the 1980s. With David Harbour and Chris Evans both reportedly part of Avengers Doomsday as Red Guardian and Steve Rogers, a meeting between the two shield-wielding characters is very much possible. And that's that for today's video. Thanks for watching and we will see you in the next one. 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